This invention relates to robot systems. The invention relates particularly to robotic systems wherein robot hands are connected, electrically and mechanically, to a robot arm and wherein the system comprises sufficient circuitry so that such hands may be interrogated and addressed through the robot control circuitry.
In the design of robots of the kind which perform a number of the manipulated operations of the type usually done by people, it is a major problem to provide an artificial hand which can manipulate the many shapes and sizes of devices that are so easily manipulated by the human hand. An example of this problem is seen in chemical laboratories wherein in such diverse tasks as removing and replacing screw caps on jars, operating syringes, and handling and pouring from many sizes of test tubes, each task requires a particular hand action.
In the past it has been the practice of robot engineers to place a great deal of emphasis on the design of expensive robot hands that can do all the functions to be required of a particular robot in a particular robot installation. This, indeed, was a logical attitude for an industry which has viewed itself largely as a labor-saving and automatic-processing service.
Nevertheless, thus, as will be described below, it has now been discovered that it is advantageous to provide a robot system which makes practical the use of a variety of robot manipulators with the same robot.